


Release

by Beryll (Rynthjan)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Death, Rape, Slavery, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynthjan/pseuds/Beryll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is only one kind of freedom to be gained</p>
            </blockquote>





	Release

The pain was intense. It permeated her whole body. The stab of broken and dislocated bones, the agony of flesh abused and ripped. And the burning that got stronger with every passing minute. The slow scorching of the bloody shreds of skin that still clung to her body. Never had she thought it possible to hurt so much and still be alive. To hurt for so long and not be allowed the mercy of death.

It was many hours ago now that she had passed the point where her body should have ceased to function. When the sun had hidden her face behind the dunes, they had caught up with her. Had circled her on their mounts, laughing at her desperate attempts at escape.

They had broken her legs right there and then. They did not intend to bring her back alive. Why should they? She was not worth much. Had never been and now was more a liability then a boon. She had heard too much, seen too much. That was why she had run away at all. Because like any cornered animal she had smelled her own death on the air. And like any stupid animal she had tried to run even if she knew that there was no way she could escape fate.

In the end it had just meant drawing out the agony of her death. They had talked of their wives, while they forced her to the ground, had talked of their kids and their lives casually while they stabbed her with their knifes and their flesh. She had listened to them joke, wondering how long it would take till her blood had run dry, she had listened to them grow bored with her whimpering.

The moon had been high in the night sky, when they had cut her throat to end her suffering and had left her for dead.

That was the point when she should have died.

But she hadn't. The pain had just continued, impossible to ignore, impossible to survive. And yet she lived. Denied even the mercy of unconsciousness she had watched the moon creep along in the sky so horribly slow. Not able to make a single sound.

Her mind had tried to shrink from the horror of dying and dying and dying, but there had been nowhere to go.

Life had been endless toil for her. Work till her back nearly broke and then work a little more. The life of a slave. She had never known another. Never wished for another. Never even considered another, mindlessly accepting her lot in life. To think was to feel. To feel was to know pain. Better to stay numb and stupid and uncaring.

Slowly she had realized two things, while she lay in the bloody sand waiting for death: There was no such thing as a painless death as reward for a faithful slave. And there was no thinking, no feeling, that she might have found had she tried. Her mind was as dark and empty as the star-less desert sky. There was not even a pale moon to assure there that there was anything at all hidden in the murky depth that was her memory, her consciousness.

Now the sun was slowly rising and the seething heat added new agony. She would have sworn any oath that it was impossible to feel more pain. She was proved wrong now. Her dry eyes stared up at the burning ball of light and her body was aflame with the terrible heat scorching her.

It was too much. Simply too much. She had stopped praying many hours ago. If the gods had not heard her screaming then, they were deaf or uncaring.

Now a sound of pain build deep in her body, bubbling up from the bloody wreck that had been the house of her soul for so long and that now refused to let her go. It gained strength slowly, rising to intolerable levels inside of her, seeking for a way to express itself. She felt it move through her body questing, searching, touching, stretching, adding more pain, finding a way upward, filling first her chest, then her throat with unbearable tension. 

And then it burst forth from her mouth. The ear-splitting scream of a creature wounded so deeply that nature itself was bend around it. The world seemed to shake around her, as she let go of the pain compressed in her body.

Finally she fell back to the ground, hoping against hope that this had been the last. That she would be allowed death now. She felt at peace, her body slowly numbing at last, the pain receding till it was just a dull throb here and there and finally leaving her with a pleasant warmth spreading through her limbs.

'So this is death', she thought and closed her eyes.


End file.
